1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a dust reflecting and introducing plate in a cleaner, and particularly to a dust reflecting and introducing plate by which dust can be efficiently introduced into dust collecting boxes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, a rotating brush has been typically used as a rotational cleaning member in a cleaner, such rotating brush having a cylindrical shape and being constructed by radially disposing a number of bristles on a shaft. In typical ones of such cleaners, the rotating brush is rotated to spring up dust from a floor, and either the dust is directly introduced into a dust collecting box, or is conveyed to a prescribed dust collecting box by suction. Such a rotational cleaning member as described above disadvantageous in that the extreme end portions of the bristles tend to hold cotton-like materials such as pieces of thread, waste cotton and the like, so that the rotational cleaning member cannot transfer these cotton-like materials into a dust collecting box, but rather these materials remain wound around the rotating brush or caught therein, and the bristles become flattened thereby lowering the dust collecting efficiency of a cleaner. In order to eliminate the disadvantage described above, a comb teeth-like part is disposed to abut an outer peripheral portion of such a rotating brush to comb off pieces of thread, waste cotton and the like from the rotating brush thereby preventing the rotating brush from being wrapped by and retaining pieces of thread, waste cotton and the like. Such a countermeasure as described above, however, is not satisfactory, so that this problem had not been solved in this type of cleaner for many years.
In this connection, two types of cleaners have been proposed by the present applicant in Japanese Patent Application No. 216589/1982 entitled "Rotational Cleaning Member in Cleaner" and No. 154847/1984 entitled "Rotational Cleaning Member in Cleaner" each of which is intended to eliminate the aforesaid disadvantage presented by a conventional cleaner and to prevent its rotating brush from being wrapped with and retaining cotton-like materials such as pieces of thread, waste cotton and the like on a floor during cleaning, whereby smooth cleaning can be effected.
A rotational cleaning member in said cleaners is has a plurality of blades disposed on the outer peripheral surface of a rotating shaft and extending along the direction of the axis thereof. One end of the blades are fixed to the shaft and the blades extend radially therefrom. Each of the blades is made of a flexible elastic plate such as a rubber, synthetic resin, or metallic spring plate or the like. These blades bend sufficiently when they abut the surface of a floor, and an arbitrary number of the blades may be provided.
The rotating cleaning member is positively prevented from being wrapped by cotton-like materials such as pieces of thread, waste cotton or the like on the surface of a floor during cleaning, whereby smooth cleaning can be carried out.
However, it has been confirmed by the applicant that since a rotating cleaning member provided with the blades described above differs completely from a conventional rotating brush wherein a number of bristles are radially disposed on its shaft, the characteristic features of the applicant's rotating cleaning member are quite different from those of the conventional rotating brush.
More specifically, as shown in FIG. 5, the dust sprung up from the surface of a floor along the direction indicated by arrow A in a conventional rotating brush flies over a range indicated by reference characters a'-b', and collides with a roof portion of its casing. The dust which has collided with the roof portion in the vicinity of a' is introduced into a dust collecting box positioned in the front of a cleaner as indicated by reference character e'. On the other hand, the dust which has flown to a position b' is reflected in the vicinity of the top of the rotating brush in the direction of c', so that such dust can be introduced into a dust collecting box in the rear of the cleaner. In this case, however, a very small amount of dust passes through each gap defined between adjacent bristles of the rotating brush in the direction d', and as a result such dust returns to the surface of the floor.
One one hand, in the rotational cleaning member provided with blades which has been proposed by the present applicant, the dust sprung up from the surface of a floor in the direction indicated by arrow A is dispersed over a range indicated by reference characters a-b as shown in FIG. 6, and it is seen that such a range is somewhat wider than that or which dust is disposed by a conventional rotating brush, but not significantly so. The dust which has collided in the vicinity of a position a is contained in a dust collecting box positioned in the front of a cleaner as indicated by reference character e. The dust which has flown to the vicinity of a position b is reflected to return to the top of the rotational cleaning member, and part of the dust reflected to the top is introduced into a dust collecting box in the rear of the cleaner as indicated by reference character c. Most of the dust, however, drops through a gap defined between adjacent blades as indicated by reference character f, and as a result such dust returns to the surface of the floor as indicated by reference character d. As described above, since the rotational cleaning member provided with blades has quite different characteristic features from those of a conventional rotating brush but also allows dust to return to the floor, a device for efficiently introducing dust, which has been sprung up by means of a rotational cleaning member, into a dust collecting box has been desired.